Brawl in the Family - Loud House
A lot of people asked me about my opinions on this episode since it aired, and that's not usually a good thing. And yeah, it's... not a good episode. This episode is stupid. It's not my least favorite episode of the show, but it's definitely in the bottom five. I still dislike One of the Boys and The Green House ''more than this one, and maybe ''Heavy Meddle and A Novel Idea too. So yeah, that's my bottom five right there in no particular order. Really quickly, I don't like Heavy Meddle because I hate the whole "if they're bullying you, then they like you" cliche that died 15 years ago for good reason. I don't like A Novel Idea because it's just really boring. Mrs. Loud is really boring. And unfair, and we're talking about Brawl in the Family. So, in this episode Lori and Leni have a fight that causes chaos for Lincoln. Immediately this reminds me of the episode Space Invader where Lynn and Lucy had a fight that caused chaos for Lincoln. And the fact that, while I wouldn't call it a ripoff, it's the exact same premise reused really did not give this episode a good start. Meanwhile, in this episode... Lincoln has no idea what's going on or why anyone is doing what they're doing or how to solve the problem. And honestly, this is the biggest problem with the episode. Why do Lincoln's younger siblings know how to deal this problem, despite Lincoln living in this house since he was born and presumably coming across this situation before? I mean, isn't this why Clyde is in the show - so we can get an outside perspective of the Loud House? It just doesn't make any sense. It's written like this is Lincoln's first night in the house. Not that anything else in this episode wasn't as stupid. Mr. and Mrs. Loud come down with animated parents syndrome. It's when parents in a cartoon become shit parents, and yes, it is an epidemic. They make two separate dinners which... doesn't help anything and probably encourages the distance and fighting. I get it, the point of the episode is don't meddle in an argument, but they're the parents and they're supposed to do something and not hide in a bunker. I get it... comedy. And animated parents being shit parents is such good comedy it's literally like all of them, except Greg Universe. Also, once again, why didn't Lincoln know that the parents serve two separate dinners during a sister fight? HE LIVES THERE. This episode is constantly explaining something to someone who should already know the scenario. Not that Lincoln himself is very smart. One of my least favorite of his character traits is when he says something obviously incredibly stupid that he probably should have known was stupid, and he does that in this episode by basically saying that Lori said bad things about Leni and saying that Leni said bad things about Lori. Speaking of that, Leni is not the type of character who seems to get angry, and at the very least, I don't think she'd ever hold a grudge. Lori said that the outfit was "one-of-a-kind" and yet Leni... managed to buy another copy of it. I think it's supposed to give the implication that Lori was scammed, but because they don't put any emphasis on that, it gives the implication that this episode was written in one draft. And the episode goes about tormenting Lincoln for something before he did anything, constantly using his room for this sister protocol... that once again, he doesn't know about, despite living in this house and almost certainly dealing with this problem. And the episode ends because Lincoln spent some time doing nothing. Even though, he got involved during Space Invader, which was more or less the same premise, and this episode is stupid. Yeah, I'd consider this episode atrocity because it doesn't really have a saving grace. Sure, the moral that sometimes it's better to not meddle in someone else's argument was a decent idea... but since Lincoln's advise is just so stupid on the face of it it doesn't come across as strong as it should. Bottom 5 episodes: 5. A Novel Idea - This episode starts out by giving Lincoln a really good point. His sisters have an awesome time at Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and it's never even implied that there's also a Take Your Son to Work Day. And they expect Lincoln to tolerate that. Meanwhile, for a comedy show, this episode goes on and on to show how bored Lincoln is... which is boring. The dentist office is a boring location. And Lincoln's mother is a very boring person. It was the intention of the episode, but that doesn't make it not boring. 4. Heavy Meddle - The message that "if they're bullying you, it means they like you" needs to die. I could make another post on how badly the Lincoln-Ronnie Anne relationship started. In their first episode, she was bullying him. In the second episode, Lincoln - in earnest - said that he didn't want to spend time with Ronnie Anne. Because contrived, she happened to be related to Bobbi. So Lori forces Lincoln to go on a date with someone he doesn't like. Not merely apologize. Go on a date. This isn't cute. 3. Brawl in the Family - Atrocity level. See above. 2. The Green House - This is another stupid episode that really bugged me on rewatch. Green episodes usually come across as preachy, and this one manages to avoid that. However, it's one of the few positives I can say about it. This episode dies on its premise. It doesn't make any sense. Lincoln's teacher gives an assignment to lower the house's carbon footprint. I have so many issues with this - namely that no child really controls their home's power situation. Clyde does nothing and is getting a good grade because his parents installed solar panels. Meanwhile Lincoln is doing everything he can and is failing because he has ten sisters. Also, it seems like everyone's carbon footprint is being judged equally, no matter what their home situation is. The mere premise of this episode doesn't work because of simple logic. If it was the Loud parents complaining about a high energy bill, it would have made more sense. And the final act of this episode is just... stupid. 1. One of the Boys - I've talked about this one before, so I won't talk about it here. For a show that's usually good at dodging gender stereotypes, it falls face first into them here. Lincoln doesn't have 10 boy versions of his sister. He ends up related to 10 Lynns. The pacing is confusing, and this episode should have been 22 minutes. Also "alternate universes" are not the same thing as "alternate dimensions." This is just an aside, but for a genius, Lisa gets a lot of things wrong. "You couldn't sell a negative charge to an electron." I'd imagine that you couldn't because all electrons are already negatively charged. It's not as bad as Jimmy Neutron saying that Australia isn't a continent, but you know. ------------ As for Brawl in the Family, I don't think that it would be able to sustain a full review, unless I did like a top 10 worst episodes when the whole thing was over. And if this show is going to go on forever, like I expect it to, then it might not even make the list. I still do really like The Loud House ''a lot, but it does happen to be hit and miss sometimes. I mean, each season technically has 52 eleven-minute episodes. I'd be very surprised if there weren't any duds at this point. And the bad episodes so far, haven't been ''that bad. Sure, Brawl in the Family... doesn't need to exist, but it's just badly written and annoying. Even my least favorite episode at least had a good idea and good things in it. I think that this one is getting special attention, like immediately, because it's the first episode of the show where you could probably say "this probably shouldn't have been made." The premise is so similar to Space Invader that it becomes immediately distracting, and it does everything worse. Category:Miscellaneous